ChatGPT developer OpenAI has sent out emails to users based in countries it considers "unsupported," saying it will block their access for good starting July 9. From a report: The email, reproduced on the OpenAI community forum here, includes a brief statement. "Our data shows that your organization has API traffic from a region that OpenAI does not currently support," it reads. "We will be taking additional measures to block API traffic from regions that are not on our supported countries and territories list starting on July 9." "To continue using OpenAI's services, you will need to access the service in a supported region," it concludes. Much of the world has access to OpenAI including virtually the entire West, most of Eastern Europe, South Asia, and about half of Africa. However, there are some notable absences on the list such as Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and mainland China.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Slack announced a significant change to its platform, saying it will "begin deleting messages and files more than one year old from free workspaces on a rolling basis." Slack's prior policy involved keeping messages and files for the lifetime of a free workspace, although accessing that full history required switching to a paid account. Under the new policy, Slack reserves the right to delete content from free workspaces after one year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is switching back to pagination for its search results, abandoning the continuous scroll feature introduced in 2022 for desktop and 2021 for mobile. The change, effective immediately for desktop users, aims to improve search result loading speeds, Google said, adding that infinite scrolling did not significantly enhance user satisfaction. Mobile users will see the change in coming months.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Federal regulators have given Amazon key permission that will allow it to expand its drone delivery program, the company announced Thursday. From a report: In a blog post published on its website, Seattle-based Amazon said that the Federal Aviation Administration has given its Prime Air delivery service the OK to operate drones "beyond visual line of sight," removing a barrier that has prevented its drones from traveling longer distances. With the approval, Amazon pilots can now operate drones remotely without seeing it with their own eyes. An FAA spokesperson said the approval applies to College Station, Texas, where the company launched drone deliveries in late 2022. Amazon said its planning to immediately scale its operations in that city in an effort to reach customers in more densely populated areas. It says the approval from regulators also "lays the foundation" to scale its operations to more locations around the country. Businesses have wanted simpler rules that could open neighborhood skies to new commercial applications of drones, but privacy advocates and some airplane and balloon pilots remain wary.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China brought a capsule full of lunar soil [non-paywalled link] from the far side of the moon down to Earth on Tuesday, achieving the latest success in an ambitious schedule to explore the moon and other parts of the solar system. From a report: The sample, retrieved by the China National Space Administration's Chang'e-6 lander after a 53-day mission, highlights China's growing capabilities in space and notches another win in a series of lunar missions that started in 2007 and have so far been executed almost without flaw. "Chang'e-6 is the first mission in human history to return samples from the far side of the moon," Long Xiao, a planetary geologist at China University of Geosciences, wrote in an email. "This is a major event for scientists worldwide," he added, and "a cause for celebration for all humanity." Such sentiments and the prospects of international lunar sample exchanges highlighted the hope that China's robotic missions to the moon and Mars will serve to advance scientific understanding of the solar system. Those possibilities are contrasted by views in Washington and elsewhere that Tuesday's achievement is the latest milestone in a 21st-century space race with geopolitical overtones. In February, a privately operated American spacecraft landed on the moon. NASA is also pursuing the Artemis campaign to return Americans to the lunar surface, although its next mission, a flight by astronauts around the moon, has been delayed because of technical issues. China, too, is looking to expand its presence on the moon, landing more robots there, and eventually human astronauts, in the years to come.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India is set to embark on an ambitious $168 billion project to link its major rivers, aiming to address water scarcity and boost agriculture in the world's most populous nation. The National River Linking Project, conceived over a century ago, plans to construct 30 canals to transfer an estimated 7 trillion cubic feet of water annually across the country. While government officials tout the project's potential to irrigate farmland and generate hydroelectric power, scientists and environmental experts have raised concerns about its ecological impact. Recent research suggests the project could disrupt monsoon patterns, potentially exacerbating water stress in some regions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Birth rates in the world's rich economies have more than halved since 1960 to hit a record low, according to a study that urged countries to prepare for a "lower fertility future." From a report: The average number of children per woman across the 38 most industrialised countries has fallen from 3.3 in 1960 to 1.5 in 2022, according to a study by the OECD published on Thursday. The fertility rate is now well below the "replacement level" of 2.1 children per woman -- at which a country's population is considered to be stable without immigration -- in all the group's member countries except for Israel. "This decline will change the face of societies, communities and families and potentially have large effects on economic growth and prosperity," warned the Paris-based organisation. Faltering population growth acts as a drag on economic expansion. Across the EU, the rise in overall labour force participation will soon not be enough to compensate for its falling working-age population, exacerbating labour shortages, according to the IMF and European Commission's 2024 ageing report. Coupled with rising life expectancy, low births also put pressure on public finances as they leave fewer people contributing the tax revenues needed to pay for the rising costs of an ageing population. A lack of pupils is also driving an increase in school closures across Europe, Japan and South Korea.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Boozt, an online Nordic department store, has banned thousands of customers for returning an excessive number of purchased items. From a report: The retailer has blocked about 60,000 of a total 3.5 million customers, in a bid to reduce the significant costs associated with "serial returners," the company said in a statement. "Their behavior is too expensive for both the company and the environment," it added. Returns are costly for retailers both in lost revenue and in the cost of trying to turn around an item to be sold again. In some instances items returned aren't fit to be sold again, leading to waste.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the weekend, a clip from a recent interview with Telegram's founder Pavel Durov went semi-viral on X (previously Twitter). In the video, Durov tells right-wing personality Tucker Carlson that he is the only product manager at the company, and that he only employs "about 30 engineers." Security experts say that while Durov was bragging about his Dubai-based company being "super efficient," what he said was actually a red flag for users. "Without end-to-end encryption, huge numbers of vulnerable targets, and servers located in the UAE? Seems like that would be a security nightmare," Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University, told TechCrunch. (Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn disputed this, saying it has no data centers in the UAE.) Green was referring to the fact that -- by default -- chats on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted like they are on Signal or WhatsApp. A Telegram user has to start a "Secret Chat" to switch on end-to-end encryption, making the messages unreadable to Telegram or anyone other than the intended recipient. Also, over the years, many people have cast doubt over the quality of Telegram's encryption, given that the company uses its own proprietary encryption algorithm, created by Durov's brother, as he said in an extended version of the Carlson interview. Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a longtime expert in the security of at-risk users, said that it's important to remember that Telegram, unlike Signal, is a lot more than just a messaging app.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration is investigating China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom over concerns the firms could exploit access to American data through their U.S. cloud and internet businesses by providing it to Beijing, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. From the report: The companies still have a small presence in the United States, for example, providing cloud services and routing wholesale U.S. internet traffic. That gives them access to Americans' data even after telecom regulators barred them from providing telephone and retail internet services in the United States. Reuters found no evidence the companies intentionally provided sensitive U.S. data to the Chinese government or committed any other type of wrongdoing. The investigation is the latest effort by Washington to prevent Beijing from exploiting Chinese firms' access to U.S. data to harm companies, Americans or national security, as part of a deepening tech war between the geopolitical rivals. It shows the administration is trying to shut down all remaining avenues for Chinese companies already targeted by Washington to obtain U.S. data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Union on Tuesday accused Microsoft of breaching antitrust rules with the "abusive" bundling of its Teams and Office products. From a report: "The European Commission has informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that Microsoft has breached EU antitrust rules by tying its communication and collaboration product Teams to its popular productivity applications included in its suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365," the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm -- said in a Statement of Objections, which is sent to inform companies of concerns raised against them. If the commission decides that an infringement has taken place once companies have responded, it can ban the conduct and fine the charged company up to 10% of its global revenue. Microsoft this year took the preemptive step to unbundle Teams from Microsoft 365 in an effort to quash antitrust concerns by the EU. However, the commission said in its Tuesday statement that the changes were "insufficient to address its concerns and that more changes to Microsoft's conduct are necessary to restore competition." Microsoft said it would work to find solutions to address the commission's additional concerns.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple rejected overtures by Meta Platforms to integrate the social networking company's AI chatbot into the iPhone months ago, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The two companies aren't in discussions about using Meta's Llama chatbot in an AI partnership and only held brief talks in March, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. The dialogue about a partnership didn't reach any formal stage, and Apple has no active plans to integrate Llama. [...] Apple decided not to move forward with formal Meta discussions in part because it doesn't see that company's privacy practices as stringent enough, according to the people. Apple has spent years criticizing Meta's technology, and integrating Llama into the iPhone would have been a stark about-face.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has made OneDrive slightly more annoying for Windows 11 users. Quietly and without any announcement, the company changed Windows 11's initial setup so that it could turn on the automatic folder backup without asking for it. Now, those setting up a new Windows computer the way Microsoft wants them to (in other words, connected to the internet and signed into a Microsoft account) will get to their desktops with OneDrive already syncing stuff from folders like Desktop Pictures, Documents, Music, and Videos. Depending on how much is stored there, you might end up with a desktop and other folders filled to the brim with shortcuts to various stuff right after finishing a clean Windows installation. Automatic folder backup in OneDrive is a very useful feature when used properly and when the user deliberately enables it. However, Microsoft decided that sending a few notification prompts to enable folder backup was not enough, so it just turned the feature on without asking anybody or even letting users know about it, resulting in a flood of Reddit posts about users complaining about what the hell are those green checkmarks next to files and shortcuts on their desktops.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Uber has begun locking New York City drivers out of its app during periods of low demand in an attempt to fight a minimum wage rule, and Lyft is threatening to do the same. As a result, some drivers say their wages have fallen by as much as 50%. At the heart of the move, say the two companies, is a six-year-old pay rule in New York that, among other things, requires firms like Uber and Lyft to pay drivers for the idle time they rack up between rides. The lockouts, which began last month, are aimed at limiting how much non-passenger time drivers are able to log and be paid for. Drivers, meanwhile, say they need to work longer hours to earn the same amount as before.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

JD.com founder Richard Liu warned employees against prioritizing work-life balance during a recent video conference, stating those who "put life first and work second" were not welcome at the company. This stance reflects a broader trend in China's tech sector as executives face slowing growth and increased competition. Major tech firms, including Alibaba and Tencent, have cut tens of thousands of jobs since 2021. Companies are now seeking younger, cheaper workers and demanding longer hours from existing staff. Pinduoduo, an e-commerce group known for its high productivity and grueling work culture, is seen as a model by some in the industry. In 2021, two Pinduoduo employees died in incidents linked to overwork by colleagues. Older tech professionals, typically over 35, face the greatest risk of redundancy and struggle to find new positions. Employers often view them as expensive and less flexible due to family responsibilities. A 2023 survey of 2,200 professionals in China's largest cities revealed widespread anxiety about career prospects and work-life balance. Many in the industry report experiencing depression and high stress levels.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

French universities are becoming hotbeds for AI innovation, attracting investors seeking the next tech breakthrough. Ecole Polytechnique, a 230-year-old institution near Paris, stands out with 57% of France's AI startup founders among its alumni, according to Dealroom data analyzed by Accel. The school's approach combines STEM education with humanities and military training, producing well-rounded entrepreneurs. "AI is now instilling every discipline the same way mathematics did years ago," said Dominique Rossin, the school's provost. "We really push our students out of their comfort zone and encourage them to try new subjects and discover new areas in science," he added. France leads Europe in AI startup funding, securing $2.3 billion and outpacing the UK and Germany, according to Dealroom.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has received a thumbs-up from iFixit, with a provisional 8 out of 10 for repairability on its latest Surface Pro and Laptop devices. From a report: Despite some issues with software recovery, the devices have been built for hardware repairability. It is quite the turnaround from the days of the first iteration of the Surface Laptop, in which the iFixit team was forced to use a scalpel to get into the device. "This is definitely not going back together without a roll of duct tape," the team observed during the 2017 teardown. In comparison, the team described Microsoft's latest laptop as "an astonishingly repair friendly device." Where once there might have been glue or fragile clips, there are now screws and even QR codes linking to the service manuals (made available on release day, according to iFixit). Stripping the device is a breeze, assuming the correct tools are used. Microsoft has helpfully provided "Wayfinders" to indicate the type and quantity of screws being used to secure components, meaning that a repairer could even do without the online guides when pulling the hardware apart.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: We're at a transitional moment in streaming -- user growth is slowing and major players are looking to consolidate, but the long-promised dream of profitability finally seems within reach (especially if you're Netflix). The perfect time, then, for The New York Times to interview many of the industry's big names -- including Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Amazon's Prime Video head Mike Hopkins, and IAC chairman Barry Diller -- about what they think comes next. There seemed to be broad agreement on most of the big themes: More ads, higher prices, and fewer big swings on prestige TV. These changes are all united by the shift towards profitability, rather than growth-at-all-costs. If the initial prices of many streaming services seemed unsustainably low at launch, it turns out they were -- prices have been steadily rising, while the streamers have also introduced more affordable subscription tiers for viewers who are willing to watch ads. In fact, some execs told The Times that streamers will keep raising prices for the ad-free tiers with the aim of pushing more customers to sign up for ad-supported subscriptions instead. The growth of ad-supported streaming could also affect the kinds of movies and shows that get produced, since advertisers generally want to reach a mass audience -- think of the heyday of ad-supported network TV, with its endless shows about doctors and cops, compared to the more ambitious fare on subscription-supported HBO.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has quietly erased instructions for switching to a local account on Windows 11 from its official support website. The move took place between June 12 and June 17, 2024, according to Tom's Hardware. The tech giant has been increasingly pushing users towards Microsoft Account logins, citing benefits like enhanced security and cross-device syncing. While the option to use a local account still exists, this latest development suggests Microsoft is steering users away from it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.